Meet Madagascar's New Lemur

Blanchard Randrianambinina The GERP mouse lemur, discovered in the Sahafina forest in Madagascar. Finding a new species may look easy on paper, the conservationist Jonah Ratsimbazafy says, but it takes a long, long time. He and his colleagues spent many a night in the jungle chasing after camouflaged hamster-size creatures hopping around the branches and brush. Their work paid off, though: after snagging 14 mouse lemurs, they were surprised to find they had a new species. “This is great news,” said Dr. Ratsimbazafy, who leads the Study and Research Group on the Primates of Madagascar, an organization dedicated to lemur conservation. He said the discovery would “bring more attention to the forest.” As part of a biodiversity survey in an understudied region of eastern Madagascar, the researchers gathered mouse lemurs with live traps and by hand. “Of course, they bite,” said ...